Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

Well, every generation is looking for good role models.  Heroes, we might say.  Good examples to follow.  And our generation is no different.  Unfortunately, oftentimes we look to celebrities or maybe athletes, and sometimes they disappoint us.  That’s not to say that every celebrity and every athlete is a bad example or a bad role model or can’t be a hero in a certain setting.  But there are so many bad examples out there that it kind of tarnishes it for those who have a platform.  But the good news is you don’t have to have a public platform, a large Twitter following or anything like that to be a good role model, to be an example for somebody to follow, even to be a hero, even a hero of the faith.  I love the superhero movies.  And my son and I, it’s the boys in the family that like going to those movies.  The girls like other kinds of movies, but I like the Superman and the Batman and the Spiderman and now Shazam and all of those superhero movies.  But they're really not superheroes.

0:01:17.6

I want to introduce you today.  We’ve been getting to know a real super of the faith.  His name is Daniel.  And we’ve been saying from the beginning of this series that he’s an example worth following, an example worth imitating.  He shows us how to stand strong in our faith when the heat is on and, yes, even when you might get thrown into the lion’s den.

0:01:41.4

Before we get to Daniel, I’m reminded of what the apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1.  Get this.  He says, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”  And the first time I ever read that, I thought, how bold of the apostle Paul to think that we should follow him.  But he is really saying, “Listen, I’m following Christ.  Just as Jesus bid me and all of us to follow Him, I’m following Christ.  And I’m imploring you, I’m encouraging you to follow me as I follow Christ, and we follow Him together.”  That’s a worthy model to follow.  It’s a worthy hero to make, a hero of the faith.  And I kind of sense from the book of Daniel if Daniel were with us today that Daniel would say, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”  Oh no, He’s an eternal member of the trinity, right?  And He was the fourth man in the fire.  Remember that story in Daniel 4?  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  He was the fourth man in the fire.  So I think it’s fair to suggest and to imagine Daniel standing before us today, saying, “Follow me as I follow Christ.”

0:02:53.8

In Daniel 6 Daniel was thrown in to the lion’s den.  What a great story this is.  It’s an iconic story.  One of the great stories in the Bible. He is thrown into the lion’s den, and four things emerge about his character that make him a hero worth imitating.  And I want to talk about those four things today and, in doing so, show us how we can escape our own lion’s den.  And we’ll talk about that as time goes on.

0:03:21.9

Let’s begin in verse 1 of chapter 6.  It says, “It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps, to be throughout the whole kingdom; and over them three high officials, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give account, so that the king might suffer no loss.  Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him.  And the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.”  The first of these four character traits that make Daniel a hero worth following as he says to us, “Follow me as I follow Christ,” is what I would describe as an excellent attitude.  I mean, Daniel just had, the scripture says, an excellent spirit about him.  He was just a guy that everybody loved to be around.  He had a positive attitude.  He infused positivity and joy and just made everybody kind of feel good as they were around Daniel.  Daniel wasn’t a negative Nelly.  He didn’t spew poisonous, negative attitude into the team.  And this is one of the reasons that Daniel excelled.

0:04:45.5

The Bible tells us that Darius is now the king.  Not over the Babylonian Empire, but now over the Medo-Persian Empire that took down the Babylonian Empire.  The Babylonian Empire ends at the end of chapter 5.  Nebuchadnezzar is off the scene.  His grandson Belshazzar, who ruled over the Babylonian Empire, is now off the scene.  And Darius the Mede is now king.  And the Medo-Persian Empire that was predicted to take control has taken control.  We know this fulfillment of prophecy from history.  And Darius was smart enough to organize his kingdom.  He was an organizational genius.  He pulled together 120 leaders.  And then of the 120, he had three that had distinguished themselves, three that would lead the 120.  And the 120 would lead for him the kingdom.  But there was one man among the three named Daniel who was exceptional.  And Darius had already figured it out.  Nebuchadnezzar figured out that Daniel was exceptional.  Belshazzar figured out that Daniel was exceptional.  And it didn’t take long for Darius to figure this out as well.  And Darius had plans to put Daniel as number one, numero uno, to elevate him to lead not only the three, but the 120, to lead just under the king himself.  And you know what happened?  People grew jealous.  We’ll get to that in a moment.  But the reason Daniel was looked at to be promoted to this level was because he had an excellent spirit.  He had an excellent attitude, we might say.

0:06:26.4

There’s an old saying, but I believe it’s true.  Your attitude will determine your altitude.  It’s really true.  I’ve met a lot of people and served with a lot of people who have great talent, great education.  They’ve gone to all the best schools.  They have all this great experience.  They are talented beyond measure, but they just have a negative, nasty attitude.  And they poison the team with it.  It might be in a work environment.  It might be in a ministry team environment.  But I’ve also met people that may not be the most talented individuals, but they just bring an infectious, contagious attitude, a positive attitude to the environment.  Your attitude really will determine your altitude.

0:07:10.2

I’ve carried this around with me for a number of years.  It’s attributed to a pastor named Chuck Swindoll.  It’s so good that some people have put it on posters and placards.  Swindoll said this, “The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.  Attitude to me is more important than facts, and it is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do.”  He says, “Attitude is more important than appearance, gifted ability, or skill.  It will make or break a company, a church, or a home.  The remarkable thing is we have a choice everyday regarding the attitude that we will embrace for that day.  We cannot chance our past, cannot change the fact that certain people will act in a certrain way.  The only thing we can do is play the one string that we have, and that string is attitude.”  He says, “I’m convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.  And so it is with you.  We are in charge of our attitudes.”

0:08:21.0

And so it was with Daniel.  There was a lot that Daniel couldn’t control.  He couldn’t control that, as a teenager, he had been held captive by the Babylonians and taken from his sweet and holy city of Jerusalem, his hometown, and taken to Babylon and held captive for all these years.  He couldn’t control that.  He couldn’t control what one king after another king after another king did to make it difficult for the Hebrews to live in that pagan environment.  But the one thing he could control was how he reacted to it and his attitude toward it.

0:08:56.9

If you don’t think attitude is important and you don’t think attitude determines your altitude, hold your place here in Daniel 6 and turn with me to Philippians 2.  And the apostle Paul writes this letter to the Philippians.  Beginning in verse 5 he says, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.”  I prefer the translation that says, “Let this attitude be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”  What attitude is he talking about?  He goes on to say, “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.”  Jesus had a great attitude.  He had a great attitude.  He didn’t consider it robbery or a deficiency to humble himself.  I mean, this is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.  And He comes to this earth in the humility of Bethlehem, clothing Himself in human flesh.  Are you kidding me?  Oh, the humiliation of Christ.  But He had this attitude.  And His attitude determined His altitude because the Bible says that the Father highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name.

0:10:37.8

It’s just one of the four characteristics that I see in this guy Daniel that makes him a worthy hero for us to imitate.  Let’s read on verse 4.  It says, “Then the high officials and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him.”  Not only did Daniel have an excellent attitude, he had untarnished integrity.  You see, all the other people among the leaders that Darius had appointed, when they began to learn that this Hebrew named Daniel was going to be appointed numero uno, they grew stinking jealous of him.  That’s all it is.  Just jealousy.  And they sought to take him down.  And they said, “Wait, we can find something in this guy by which to accuse him and to find fault in him.”  And they set up an investigation, and they investigated, and they investigated, and they investigated.  And you know what?  They came up with nothing.  Nada.  Zilch.  Zippo.  Nothing on the guy.  They couldn’t find anything by which to accuse him.  Why?  Because Daniel lived his entire life with untarnished integrity.

0:12:14.7

Integrity.  It’s a great word.  It comes from the Latin word integritas.  It means “wholeness” or “completeness” or “entireness.”  There wasn’t anything missing in Daniel’s character by which they could find fault in him.  He was a man of integrity.  Maybe a math lesson will help.  Mom, Dad, grandparents, are you smarter than your 5^th grader this morning?  Let’s remember a little math lesson.  Kids, help us out there.  Remember the difference between an integer and a fraction?  An integer is a whole number- 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 256.  Those are called whole numbers, all right.  A whole number has integrity because it is a whole number.  It’s an entire number.  It’s a complete number.  A fraction is not a whole number-1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 5/6.  It’s a part of a whole number.  You say, well, what does that have to do with being in church this morning?  Well, here is the question.  Examine yourself here.  Are you an integer, or are you a fraction?  You see, God wants to make integers of us, people of untarnished integrity.  That our character is whole and it’s complete and it’s entirely reflective of the character of Jesus Christ and nobody can find fault in us.

0:13:43.8

Now, Daniel was not a perfect man, a sinless man.  But he was blameless.  A blameless person is somebody who, when he or she finds something that doesn’t rise to the level of moral excellence in them, that they deal with it honestly and with integrity.  They confess their sins.  They repent of their sins.  They ask God to cleanse them and move them forward.  Daniel was not perfect.  He wasn’t sinless.  There was only one person who was sinless, and that was Jesus, such Son of God.  But he was a blameless person, a man of integrity.  He was an integer and not a fraction.

0:14:23.3

Coach John Wooden…this is basketball time, right?  Final Four time.  I stayed up way too late watching my Purdue Boilermakers almost beat Virginia.  We won’t talk about that.  But Coach John Wooden is a legendary coach of the UCLA Bruins…I don’t know, 10+ national championships to his credit.  Coach Wooden says, “In its simplest form, integrity is purity of intention.  It’s keeping a clean conscience.  Purity of intention is really a reflection of the heart. People with integrity always want to do what’s right once they are sure what right is.”  And then he says, as only a legendary basketball coach can say, “People of integrity do what is right both on and off the court.”  Are you a person of integrity?

0:15:16.7

It wasn’t enough that the other leaders couldn’t find some fault in Daniel.  When they found him to be faultless, they changed their strategy.  Let’s read on in verse 5.  “Then these men said, ‘We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.’  Then these high officials and satraps came by agreement[a] to the king and said to him, ‘O King Darius, live forever!’”  Flattery is going to get them somewhere.  Listen to this.  “‘All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction, that whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions.  Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked.’  Therefore King Darius signed the document and injunction.”

0:16:25.5

Well, if you can’t investigate somebody and come up with some fault by which to charge them, then create some legislation that backs him into a corner.  And go flatter the king a little bit as they did.  And they have the king…they bring a piece of legislation to the king and have him sign it.  And Darius loved to be flattered.  And it was a law that could not be revoked.  You ever heard of the law of the Medes and the Persians?  Well, it comes from this.  A law that was put in place that could not be revoked.  It had the king’s stamp of approval on it.  The legislation passed.

0:17:04.0

Now look at verse 10.  “When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem.  He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.”  Daniel was not only a man of excellent attitude and untarnished integrity, but here we see his fearless piety.  Daniel was a practicing Jew.  He worshipped the one true God of Israel, not the pagan gods of Babylon or the pagan gods of the Medo-Persian Empire.  Daniel stayed true to his God.  He was a godly man in a godless culture.

0:17:56.0

And here we have a little insight into his daily practice, his spiritual disciplines, and his fearless piety.  He could have heard about the legislation and the signing of the document and just cowered in fear, closed up his windows and just prayed in secret so that nobody would see him.  But that’s not the way Daniel prayed.

0:18:21.2

Let’s examine a little bit of his prayer life.  I think it’s instructive for us today, and there are three things that we learn about Daniel’s prayer life.  First of all, he had a place to pray.  Do you see that?  It says that “he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem.”  He never lost sight of the holy city of God.  He never lost sight of his spiritual heritage that he grew up in.  His parents must have done a great job raising him, because even as a young teenager, Daniel was strong in his faith.  And we’ve learned about that all throughout (0:19:00.0) the first half of the book of Daniel.

0:19:01.7

But he had a place to pray.  By the way, do you have a place to pray?  Now, the New Testament talked about praying without ceasing.  And that means that you can pray at anytime, anywhere.  The idea is to have constant communion and communication with God.  That means you can have your hands on the steering wheel when you’re driving down the road—eyes wide open, of course—and you're talking to God.  You’re having a conversation with Him.  You pray without ceasing.  You can be walking into a meeting, business people, into an appointment, and you just toss up one of those quick arrow prayers.  You’re praying without ceasing.

0:19:40.4

But Daniel also had a place that he went to, a quiet place, a room in his house in the upper chamber where he could open up the windows and face Jerusalem and align his heart in a Godward direction.  You know, (0:20:00.0) Jesus told us to find a place to pray.  He says, “Go into your closet.  Don’t be like the hypocrites who are praying for display out in the public squares.  Go into your closet,” He says, “and your Father who sees you in private will reward you in an open place.”  Do you have a place to pray?  Find a place to pray.  I understand the pray without ceasing thing, but I have found that the practice of spiritual disciplines in finding a place to pray and to meet with God is very important.

0:20:33.8

Also, notice his posture. It says he got down on his knees.  Posture sometimes matters.  It helps to align the heart.  Now, you can pray standing up.  You can pray with your hands folded and your head bowed and your eyes closed.  You can pray with your hands out and your face lifted up into heaven and your eyes wide open.  But you can also pray on your knees.  You can also pray prostrate, laying out on your face.  We see all these different postures of prayer in the Bible.  It’s one thing to posture when you pray.  That’s what Jesus warned us against.  “Don’t be like the hypocrites who posture when they pray.”  But your posture really does matter and sometimes aligns the heart.  So when you find a place to pray…go to a place where nobody is going to interrupt you and where you can get down on your knees before God and pray.

0:21:29.7

And then notice his persistence.  It says, “He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.”  This was his practice.  Three times a day.  Prayed in the morning, prayed at noon, prayed at night.  You know, in the Muslim world they pray five times a day.  I’ll suggest to you they pray to the wrong god, but you’ve got to respect their piety and their practice there.  Five times a day they get down on their prayer mats.

0:22:07.0

What about us Christians?  Is prayer the kind of priority that, when the threats, the accusations come against us, when the threat of the lion’s den threatens our peace and makes us anxious, have you been practicing the discipline of fearless piety?  Daniel just slipped into his normal practice, and it was just what he did.  That’s why he handled the situation so well.  I know some people, they only pray when there’s a crisis.  That helps, but pray when there’s not a crisis.  Make it your personal practice so that when the crisis comes, you know, you just slip right into that practice there.

0:22:55.4

Well, let’s read on beginning in verse 11.  It says, “Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and plea before his God.”  They got him now, right?  He’s in violation of the legislation.  “Then they came near and said before the king, concerning the injunction, ‘O king!  Did you not sign an injunction, that anyone who makes petition to any god or man within thirty days except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?’”  Always beware of somebody who comes and questions you like that and they’re trying to trap you into an answer.  It says, “The king answered and said, ‘The thing stands fast, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.’  Then they answered and said before the king, ‘Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or the injunction you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.’  Then the king, when he heard these words, was much distressed and set his mind to deliver Daniel.  And he labored till the sun went down to rescue him.  Then these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king, ‘Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed.’”  Darius was bothered by the legislation that he had signed and what was going to happen now to this excellent man named Daniel.

0:24:30.2

Verse 16, “Then the king commanded, and Daniel was brought and cast into the lion’s den.”  I want you to think about this.  Nebuchadnezzar had a fiery furnace.  That’s how he dealt with his enemies.  Darius had a lion’s den.  Both of these guys were just ruthless kings and leaders.  Verse 20, “As he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of anguish.  The king declared to Daniel, ‘O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?’”  I love this.  Verse 21, “Then Daniel said to the king, ‘O king, live forever!  My God sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths, and they have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no harm.’  Then the king was exceedingly glad, and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den.  So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him,”—listen to this—“because he had trusted in his God.”  Daniel was not only a man of excellent attitude and untarnished integrity and fearless piety, but here there is record of his bold faith, bold faith.

0:25:51.5

Do you have that kind of faith?  The kind of faith that, when things don’t seem to be going your way and the legislation is against you in some way and the posse that has formed against you seems to be winning the day…you literally get tossed into the lion’s den.  Daniel had the kind of faith as if you say, “I don’t know what the end result is going to be here, but I trust God to take care of me.”  And the God of heaven shut the mouths of the lions because of Daniel’s faith.

0:26:32.6

Never underestimate the power of faith.  Jesus says if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain.  It’s not the size of your faith, it’s the object of your faith that matters.  You can have faith in faith, you can have faith in yourself, or you can have faith in the one true God, the God of the Bible with whom nothing is impossible. That was the kind of faith Daniel had.  Faith in yourself or faith in faith…that’s nothing, right?  You’ll always disappoint yourself.  And what is faith in faith?  Faith in the Lord Jesus Chris…who was the fourth man in the fire, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego learned, and that Daniel is learning as well.

0:27:16.2

Hold your place here in Daniel 6 and go with me to Hebrews 11 real quickly.  Hebrews 11 is known as the great hall of faith.  And the writer of Hebrews lists and names a whole bunch of people in the Bible who were great heroes of the faith, examples for us to follow.  And he mentions the story of Cain and Abel.  He mentions Noah.  He mentions Enoch, Abraham, even Jacob and Sarah and Joseph.  He mentions Moses.  I mean, all these great names and great heroes of the faith.  And then he gets to the end here.  And he says, verse 32, “And what more shall I say?  For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets.”  You know, he just runs out of time here, runs out of editorial space.  And he just kind of lumps them all in there.  He says, “Who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises,”—here it is—“stopped the mouths of lions.”  It was Daniel’s faith.  This is the power of faith.  Bold, courageous faith.  It stopped the mouths of lions.  Just stop and think about that for a moment.

0:28:38.1

What sort of lion’s den are you facing right now?  What sort of impossibility have you resolved yourself to?  “No, it’s just over.  It’s just done.  My marriage is over.  My business is going to fail.  The kids are never going to come back again.”  No, the God of the Bible has the ability to stop the mouths of lions when they're about to devour you.  And this is why Daniel is just worthy of following.  “Follow me as I follow Christ.  As I follow Christ all the way into the lion’s den with my excellent attitude, my untarnished integrity, my fearless piety, and my bold and courageous faith.”  That’s an example, friends, worth following.  Those are the kinds of superheroes we need today.  That’s why we say, “Dare to be a Daniel.”  Dare to be a Daniel.

0:29:30.4

One last thing, and then I’m done.  I heard somebody say just this morning that the world in which we live in is kind of like a lion’s den.  And that’s good theology, and let me tell you why.  Because the Bible tells us in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober; be watchful.”  Be on the alert.  Why?  Because “your adversary the devil prowls about like a roaring lion, seeing whom he may devour.”  We live in a lion’s den, friend.  And you and I have an adversary.  We have a foe.  You say, “Oh no, everybody likes me.”  No, I can tell you somebody who despises you.  He is a fallen angel who was originally named Lucifer.  We know him as Satan, the devil, the wicked one, Beelzebub.  He’s got a long list of diabolical names.  And he is our adversary.  That means he has you and me in his crosshairs.  He has your marriage in his crosshairs.  He has your family.  He has your kids.  He has your future.  He has your dreams.  He has your business.  He has your reputation as a follower of Jesus Christ right in his crosshairs.

0:30:52.1

And if we understand the scriptures correctly, when Satan tried to usurp the authority of God, Lucifer, a created being, fell from heaven and, the Bible says, swept one-third of the holy angels with him.  He has a massive army.  They are highly organized.  They operate in what the Bible calls the heavenly realms.  Six times in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians he talks about the heavenly realms.  The sixth time, in Ephesians 6, he says, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of darkness in the heavenly realms.”

0:31:32.8

What is the heavenly realms?  Oh, we know about heaven.  We know about earth.  We don’t think much about the heavenly realms.  Think of it was the seam between heaven and earth.  It’s the place of spiritual conflict.  It’s the unseen realm of conflict and spiritual war that is constantly taking place.  We get a glimpse of it in Daniel 10.  Strap on your seatbelts.

0:32:01.0

But you and I have an adversary, a devil who “prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”  You don’t need to fear the devil, but you do need to respect him.  And here is why you don’t need to fear him.  Because Jesus, who is called the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, in the book of Revelation just prior to His second coming He is also called the Lion of Judah.  Can somebody say amen?  That’s good news.  And the Bible also tells us that “greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world,” friends.  You don’t have to fear the devil, but you need to be aware of him.  You need to understand his schemes and his strategies.  You need to put on the full armor of God.  But you need to know that if you get tossed into the lion’s den…and we are in a lion’s den called this fallen world where the devil, who prowls about like a lion, is daily, persistently, without any rest and hesitation, going after you and me.  But all you have to say is, “I belong to Jesus.  I belong to the Lion of Judah.  And great is He that is in me than he that is in the world.”  That’s how you escape the lion’s den.

0:33:18.3

Until you come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ through the cross of Christ, you are a lion’s lunch and then some.  But as soon as you come humbly on your knees to the cross of Christ and begin following Christ as Paul and David and Moses and Peter and John and millions of others since Bible days have done…and even Daniel.  Until you follow Christ, and when you follow Christ, nothing can defeat you.  Oh, he can intimidate us with his roar, but he ain’t got nothing on us.  Because the Lion of Judah has rescued us.

0:34:24.5